Davis's Brigade

Esteemed member DPowell334@aol.com contributes:

Davis' brigade did quite well initially on July 1st, driving back the
initial union line and swinging over to take the Iron Brigade in the flank.
However, it was almost certainly Davis' inexperience that allowed his brigade
to slip out of his control, get penned up in the RR cut, and lose a substantial
number of men there. Had he been more alert to his flank Davis might well
have retained a regiment to face east towards Seminary Ridge and protect
that line from the rallying Union force of Cutler's Brigade, which was
far from out of action.

Other than that, however, Davis did no more poorly than most on the
field. The brigade did as well as anyone could have in the Big Charge,
for example.

Heth is also somewhat to blame for Davis' problems. Heth committed the
two lead brigades to the advance with no support, expecting only fragile
resistance. He got his face slapped hard for that over-confidence, and
lost a lot of men fairly needlessly. Ideally, Brockenbrough and Pettigrew
should have formed the support line, and followed up that initial success.